Various abbreviations that appear in the specification and/or in the drawing figures are defined as below:
API Application Program Interface
BABT British Approvals Board Of Telecommunications
CSIM CDMA Subscriber Identity Module
eUICC embedded Universal Integrated Circuit Card
GSM Global System for Mobile Communications
GSMA GSM Association
IMEI International Mobile Equipment Identity
ISIM Internet Protocol Multimedia Services Identity Module
MNO Mobile Network Operators
OTA Over-The-Air
SIM Subscriber Identity Module
SM Subscription Manager
TAC Type Approval Code
UICC Universal Integrated Circuit Card
UE User Equipment
WCDMA Wideband Code Division Multiple Access
WLAN Wireless Local Access Network
3G Third Generation
4G Fourth Generation
The following description of background art may include insights, discoveries, understandings or disclosures, or associations together with disclosures not known to the relevant art prior to the present invention but provided by the present invention. Some such contributions of the present invention may be specifically pointed out below, while other such contributions of the present invention will be apparent from their context.
3G cards are UICC cards and store a network access application such as SIM, USIM or ISIM applications. Previous 2G cards are referred to simply as SIM cards. A conventional UICC card or SIM card is issued by an operator and is used to access operator controlled services. The operator association GSMA requires that a dual SIM device has two IMEIs. In a classical case, a UE (for example, a handset or a smart phone) with multiple SIM card slots can detect when the SIM card has been changed by physical means.
A subscription related to a corresponding IMEI as above mentioned may identify, among other things, connectivity networks in which the UE can be used, and the individual settings relating to the subscription. These setting may include a network operator setting and a subscriber identifier of an end user. The end user might be an individual user, but may also be a corporation. According to conventional methods, the subscription data may be recorded on a small chip on which at least memory areas are arranged for protecting the sensitive parts of the aforementioned settings and loading them into the UE being used. In addition, this subscription data maybe encoded on a microcontroller operating as the processor unit for a device. Such a device is generally called a UICC for 3G communication technologies or a SIM for 2G communication technologies which is usually placed in a compact package generally referred to as a UICC card or a SIM card. The network access application which is traditionally stored on a SIM or UICC card can also be stored on other form factor like an embedded chip, a platform mounted chip, a logical unit on a larger processor, a protected memory card or a smart card. The chip may hold one or more sets of subscriptions or applications.
In the classical case, the UE has a binding between the IMEI and SIM card slot. Today a dual SIM product has two IMEIs and two SIM card slots. Each physical SIM card slot gets an IMEI assigned and the SIM card slotted into the slot then has the IMEI logically assigned.